Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

While they are still un­clear about the cir­cum­stances that led to the death of their loved one, Kerdell Whint, rel­a­tives are urg­ing par­ents to pay clos­er at­ten­tion to their chil­dren and steer them away from crime.

Po­lice said Whint, 20, and an­oth­er man tried to rob a bar in D’abadie on Wednes­day night.

Whint re­port­ed­ly point­ed a gun at pa­trons and fired shots with­out hit­ting any­one, be­fore he was con­front­ed by a cus­tomer who is a li­censed gun own­er.

The cus­tomer shot Whint and his ac­com­plice.

Whint died at the scene while his ac­com­plice re­mained ward­ed at hos­pi­tal up to yes­ter­day.

Po­lice found and seized a black Sig Sauer pis­tol with 14 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion be­lieved to have been used by Whint in the bar.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Whint’s Ali Jhan Lane, D’abadie home and spoke with rel­a­tives, who said they were scep­ti­cal of the of­fi­cial ac­count giv­en by po­lice.

One rel­a­tive, who asked not to be named, said Whint was orig­i­nal­ly from La Ro­main, but stayed with rel­a­tives in D’abadie as it was clos­er to the El So­cor­ro job­site where he worked as a con­struc­tion work­er. She said Whint al­so earned ex­tra mon­ey by work­ing as a ven­dor sell­ing wa­ter at the Mal­oney traf­fic lights on week­ends.

The rel­a­tive said while she re­mem­bered Whint as a help­ful and hard-work­ing young man, she could on­ly ad­vise par­ents to be more at­ten­tive to the be­hav­iour of their chil­dren.

She said: “I am hear­ing all kinds of things. I would ad­vise par­ents, grand­par­ents, who­ev­er, to take a clos­er look at their chil­dren, their grand­chil­dren or who­ev­er con­cerns them.”

She added: “Be­cause every­body is say­ing all kinds of things, but I don’t see what they see and the chil­dren don’t al­ways show things in front of their par­ents. You might not see me rolling on the ground, jump­ing and bawl­ing, but it’s hurt­ing me. If he used to do this (crime), I nev­er had any knowl­edge of this, so peo­ple will say all kind of things but I know what to be­lieve. I don’t know him to be that kind of per­son but I will not put my head on a block be­cause I don’t know what hap­pened... or what was go­ing through his mind that made him do what he did, if he did it.”

The rel­a­tive said she was deeply pained by Whint’s death, re­call­ing her last in­ter­ac­tion with him on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

An­oth­er rel­a­tive said his last con­ver­sa­tion with Whint was to in­form him that their grand­moth­er had pre­pared a meal of fried bake and tu­na fish.

This rel­a­tive said Whint was im­pris­oned for a pe­ri­od of time but said he did his best to avoid crim­i­nal­i­ty. He said Whint’s death came as a shock and ques­tioned the of­fi­cial sto­ry pro­vid­ed by po­lice, as he claimed the bul­let wounds on Whint’s body ap­peared to be from his back, sug­gest­ing he was shot from be­hind.

He al­so called on young peo­ple to be mind­ful that their ac­tions have con­se­quences.

He said, “We don’t have a clear pic­ture on what re­al­ly tran­spired, all I know is that he (Whint) dead and peo­ple say­ing he went on a rob­bery. If that’s what re­al­ly hap­pened, to the young peo­ple, hard work will al­ways pay off.

“Don’t suc­cumb to peer pres­sure. Don’t try to prove to any­body that you can do this or that, be­cause when you end up in trou­ble, no­body is com­ing to help you.”

The rel­a­tive said he was al­so sad­dened by the com­ments on so­cial me­dia which cel­e­brat­ed Whint’s death and urged the pub­lic to be more com­pas­sion­ate.

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke to a pa­tron who was at the bar dur­ing the rob­bery, who said while she was shak­en up she would not al­low it to de­ter her from liv­ing her life.

She said she was grate­ful for the help of the cus­tomer who de­fend­ed the pa­trons.

“I was just lucky some­one was here who did what they had to do. I can’t let that keep me back. If ban­dits want you, they will go in your home to get you,” the pa­tron said.

Po­lice from Mal­oney CID are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.